i've been having these really vivid and intense dreams the past few nights, but i soon forget them once i wake up, except i'm left with an overwhelming relief that it was all a dream. my old roommate kevin texted me, asking for room availability for an astrophysicist coworker of his due to arrive next month and here to stay for the next 2 years. i didn't respond as i had to ask my parents about it first when i got to the cafe in the late morning. there's currently an empty room in the apartment above my sister's place, but the couple who lives there have sort of taken it over and turned it into a living room slash conference room.

we had a busy day at the cafe, it got a little crazy around lunch time, but it wasn't too bad. a bunch of pad thai orders today, but not a single beef noodle soup until an order finally came in the early evening. i learned how to prepare a chicken curry dish, one of the few things i don't yet know how to make. wifi did go down again in the afternoon, but not sure if it was the cablemodem or the router. i want to say the router because i remember the last time it happened, certain devices could still connect to the internet while others couldn't. i'll try seeing if i can upgrade the firmware, but i'm a bit hesitant because the router is actually an asus TM-AC1900 that i flashed to an RT-AC68U (the second one that i've flashed, the first being in 2018).

my father showed me the stainless steel heavy duty folding shelf brackets that arrived yesterday. we went down to the basement to find a board of the proper size: 12 x 30". supposedly the brackets can support a maximum load of 330 lbs. we also have some spare boards in the garage or we could always take a trip down to home depot to find something compatible.

while down in the basement i saw a cuisinart wine refrigerator (the cuisinart private reserve wine cellar). no, i'm not interested in collecting wines. i'm actually more interested in using it to raise cool weather orchids. unfortunately i checked the specs, it's thermoelectric so it's more quiet but isn't as reliable as a compressor refrigerator. also there's no ability to set a temperature timer. finally, it's a bit small, can only fit 6 bottles of wine, so maybe at most a few exotic orchids. luckily used wine coolers are always getting sold on craig's list, so i could always snag one for cheap.

my sister made some chicken rice porridge, i managed to eat a bowl of leftovers. i also had a beef meat bun with a crispy baked crust. what i didn't have all day was water though, which would explain while i felt a little light-headed today.

my father left at 4:30pm to pick up my sister's godmother from the airport. her flight back from taiwan arrived at 5pm, which is the worst time to arrive, right during rush hour. checking my father's progress on google map though, he made good time, and was already on his way back around 5:15pm. it looked like he'd dropped off my sister's godmother in central square and was on his way back, but he seemed to be taking a long time returning to the cafe, and seemed to be stuck in one place. around 6pm he called us, but didn't say anything when we picked up. maybe he got into a traffic accident? my mother ended up calling my sister's godmother, and what happened was my father accidentally took my sister's godmother phone, and was driving back to return it.

my father didn't get back until almost 6:30pm, which was when we were closing up for the day. my mother packed me some leftovers: lion's head meat balls, wood ear mushrooms, brown rice, and some of those beef pastries.

i wasn't very hungry, just wanted to decompression after a day of cafe work. i didn't start preparing dinner until after 9pm. i went into the kitchen to microwave the food. that's when all the lights on the microwave blinked off. i figured maybe i popped the circuit breaker, but when i checked the outlet, it was still working. i tried unplugging the microwave to different outlets, but it just wouldn't turn on. the microwave was broken.

it's either an easy fix - replace an internal fuse - or a hard fix - in which case i'd get a new microwave. i tried to open up the microwave, but it used tamper-proof security screws so i couldn't get the case opened. instead i took some time to clean the inside of the microwave (didn't realize how dirty it was) before putting it back. i'll need to go to belmont tomorrow and find my tamper-proof bit set to check the internal fuse.

regardless, no microwave meant i couldn't reheat the leftovers. so instead i reheated last night's pasta in a pan on the stove and had that for dinner along with another serving of salad. it's weird, never given much thought about a microwave, until i don't have one, and then it becomes very vital. i ate while watching some cheers reruns on pluto tv, before eating some orange slices, and then tossing out the trash. it was snowing outside, a thin layer of icy crust snow coating the trash cans which i pulled out earlier when i came home.